Resources and Publications

Resources

To prevent students from dropping out of high school, start by helping them when they are in elementary school. That is the finding of a new brief that updates earlier studies conducted by researchers with the Center for Optimized Student Support at Boston College’s Lynch School of Education. Students who attended elementary schools with City Connects partnerships in kindergarten or first grade were less likely to drop out of high school compared to students who never attended a City Connects affiliated school.

Launched in 2013 by the Fireman Foundation and the Massachusetts Interagency Council on Housing and Homelessness, the Secure Jobs initiative brings together employment and housing agencies to help homeless families increase their level of economic self-sufficiency. This report explores the landscape of homelessness statewide, highlights current efforts, underscores lessons learned, and presents challenges and opportunities for future success.

The following materials were created by the Institute on Assets and Social Policy, a research institute at the Heller School for Social Policy and Management at Brandeis University, for the purposes of evaluating Phases One and Two of the Secure Jobs Initiative.

Secure Jobs is a partnership that links families who are homeless to resources and service they need to enter and sustain employment. This presentation by the Institute on Assets and Social Policy (IASP) at Brandeis University highlights Phase One of the Initiative.

Rapid re-housing is often criticized for providing an exit from homelessness, but not offering access for homeless families to increase their income, escape poverty, and improve the health, education and development of their children. Communities working to rapidly re-house families are doing fantastic work, and can do even more by developing partnerships with other systems of care to leverage additional support.

The mission of Children's HealthWatch is to improve the health and development of young children by informing policies that address and alleviate economic hardships. This presentation highlights the work of Children's HealthWatch and the Healthy Families EITC (Earned Income Tax Credit) Coalition to increase the Earned Income Tax Credit in Massachusetts.

This manual provides the basic utility rights training the National Consumer Law Center (NCLC) delivers in Massachusetts, and serves as both a training guide for NCLC trainees, as well as a free-standing handbook for those who help clients with utility problems but cannot attend NCLC training.